The subject invention generally relates to retail services and, more particularly, relates to a system for facilitating multi-channel purchase of FSA eligible items.
Medical Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs), and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs)—individually and collectively referred to hereinafter as FSAs—are company sponsored benefits that allow employees to purchase medical services, prescriptions, over-the-counter medical products, and other items with pre-tax dollars, as designated by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS has approved a process of automation, called auto-adjudication, that allows a customer to have FSA-eligible items authenticated at the point-of-sale (POS). This automation is made possible by the retailer's POS system which identifies and validates FSA-eligible items with the customer's use of an FSA linked debit card (usually a Visa or MasterCard debit card, just like a checking account) to make the purchase, i.e., the retailer POS system is certified as an Inventory Information Authentication System (IIAS). With the use of an IIAS, when FSA-eligible items are purchased, records associated with the validated items are transmitted back to the customer's FSA account and the purchase amount is deducted from any available FSA account balance. This allows the customer to provide the required documentation back to the plan administrator without the onerous task of collecting and filing receipts and awaiting reimbursement from the account.